Audiofile and Megaupload

McLEAN, Virginia (AP) — One of the world's largest file-sharing sites was shut down Thursday, and its founder and several company executives were charged with violating piracy laws, federal prosecutors said.

An indictment accuses Megaupload.com of costing copyright holders more than $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. The indictment was unsealed one day after websites including Wikipedia and Craigslist shut down in protest of two congressional proposals intended to thwart online piracy.

The Justice Department said in a statement said that Kim Dotcom, formerly known as Kim Schmitz, and three others were arrested Thursday in New Zealand at the request of U.S. officials. Two other defendants are at large.

The money laundering part is the single major statute, although I'm not clear how that ties in with file sharing web sites. Notice how copyright appears twice as if for window dressing. Money laundering is an assault on the economic viability and very existence of the state itself. Enough of it can destroy currency value, causing political mayhem followed by an extreme change in policy and leadership (Weimar-->Hitler e.g.). This is the usual activity of criminal operations, foreign agents and terrorists, or revolutionaries in Third World states. They are suddenly going all out, openly and boldly for a reason.

Anonymous is about to discover all about deep-packet inspection and logging. But looking at the bright side, they won't be virgins anymore.

This is going to be an assload of work re-uploading this stuff to other servers, but I think it's a wise thing to do. Even if Megaupload comes back, it's going to be a long time from now and will probably be without content.

Anyone know how we should divide this labor up? I say we start with the upload pages for the bands who are featured in the DLA.

Just so everyone knows, they are taking down copyrighted stuff at what seems to be a high rate, but I am still finding files. I'll keep at it for another hour or so tonight and continue tomorrow, but the writing is pretty thick on the wall. Maybe the spell will pass soon, otherwise, I think maybe torrent or private spaces will be needed.

Logged

Phoenix

Why search for this stuff online, don't y'all own it, on CDs or digitally? Why not share it on programs like Soulseek instead of hosting it somewhere? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there's any risk sharing files on the lesser-known peer-to-peer things like Soulseek.